To Live For Yourself
by T.J.98
Summary: Karl Werner is a Settled Veteran of the Krieg Death Korps. Alria is a Sanctioned Xeno of the Ulthwé Guardians. Chance has introduced them, and Duty compels them to cooperate, yet gradually and inexplicably their feelings for each other grow beyond mere toleration. The shadows gather; can they learn to live for themselves, and can a human and an Eldar ever really love each other?
1. Chapter 1

**The Adeptus Ministorum, the Ordo Hereticus, and the Ordo Xenos have determined the following account to contain instances of Hersey, specifically instances of humans willful associating with Xenos. Therefore this work is not suitable for Imperial Audiences and anyone caught distributing this work shall be sent to a Penal World as punishment. Glory to The God-Emperor!**

 **This heretical story is inspired by the Deviantart drawing "Willpower Test" by NicklausofKrieg. He has some good drawings, and I suggest any fan of Warhammer 40,000 view his work.**

* * *

From beneath a porch on a homestead cabin, an Imperial Guard Veteran stood watch over his sounder of Grox. In his arms he held a lasgun affixed with a bayonet, on his person he wore a grey army jacket, and over his face he wore a metal gas mask that he had been raised to see as a second skin.

The man is named Karl Werner, and he was a veteran of the Death Korps of Krieg.

For thirteen years, starting at the age of fourteen, Werner left his home planet and fought in the 9987th Death Korps Regiment. In the 9987th, Werner fought in half a dozen campaigns across half a dozen worlds. Werner's Regiment suppressed a workers strike on a polluted Forge World, battled Kroot Hordes on an Agri-world, defeated a Nurgle Cultist Rebellion on another Forge World, defended a Shrine World from Feral Orks, routed a Waaagh from a Hive World, and finally it with two other Regiments participated in a xenocidal purge against the Feral Orks who had controlled this planet.

Werner was glad to fight against Xenos, as he received indoctrination in their evils. They were all sadists who killed and tortured for depraived pleasure and in the name of ruinous powers, or so Werner was taught from birth. Werner was convinced that in all of existence there has never been a single Eldar or Tau or Ork or other Xeno with even a shred of goodness in their soul. They were evil killers to a man.

Now this Krieger was a civilian; his regiment and the other two which fought in this last campaign were given the Right of Settlement. The Planetary Governor who purged this Ork World - a spoiled Farfallen Nobleman named Rory Malone - was given the right to rule it on behalf of The Imperium. He renamed the world Mediolanum - a proper Gothic name - and began efforts to make it productive again. Imperial Civilians from overpopulated hive-worlds were brought in to repopulate the planet and the veterans of the conquest were granted the best lands for their homesteads.

That is why Werner is on a Grox Farm instead of in a Trench. Given the choice he would gladly reenlist to do what he was made for and fight the enemies of The Imperium once more. However no such choice has been made available to him; Planetary Governor Malone forbade the veterans from reenlisting as he wanted them to stay on Mediolanum to defend it should it be necessary to do so, even though this world has not been threatened once in the three years since settlement.

 _It is better to Die for the Emperor than to live for yourself._

"Well", mumbled Werner to himself, "if the Planetary Governor wants me to sit here and rot then I guess I have no choice".

 _In Life, Shame. In Death, Atonement._

Werner looked out over the muddy fields that made up his homestead. The Lobotomized Grox, dumb and brutish as always, were standing idle and aimless in the mud: in a few months they will have fattened up and Werner will butcher them and preserve their meat in the smokery before taking it to market. The Ducks, Geese, and Chickens are all roosting in the barn: Werner rarely kills them as he keeps them for their eggs rather than their meats.

The field mice were probably in their miserable in their burrows right now: fortunately Werner has not found any Vapour Rats in his traps yet and he hopes it remains that way. Back in the Krieg Orphanage one of the little devils bit Werner on the foot and left him ill for a month, cursed things!

A large gust of watery wind blew into Werner, causing him to shiver. He decided he could go inside now: nobody was going to try to rustle his Grox in this weather.

Grumbling to himself, Karl Werner attempted with tinderbox to light the stove in his living room. Once lit, he wrapped himself in an old army blanket and sat down on the wooden stool in front of it.

"Why does the cold bother you?" Werner asked himself. "It never bothered before."

But he knew the reason: while he had endured horrendous freezing cold and snow in the past, he had been with brothers and sisters in arms when he did so. Friends with which to discuss the trials of the war, friends with which to joke and jest make the troubles of life fade, friends with which to take comfort. Now Karl Werner was alone; almost all of his friends paid that final measure of devotion upon the bloody field of battle, and those who survived live too far away to visit or correspond with regularly. Werner's "neighbors" were either from different Death Korp Platoons within the 9987th Regiment, or were from different planets altogether (such as the Valhallan 1904th Regiment or the 552nd Vostroyan Firstborn Regiment, both of which were also settled upon Mediolanum).

Werner pushed thoughts of the past away from his mind, and soon drifted into sleep in front of his stove fire.

He could not have known just the unbelievable twist fate had in store for him ...


	2. Chapter 2

Alria of the Ulthwé Craftworld sat curled into a ball in the corner of her imprisonment cell. She consciously guarded herself against despair, erecting a wall of stoicism between her and the abysmal ruin that will befall her. Alria knew that to give in to this grief would be to invite The Great Enemy into her soul. For this reason Alria would not allow herself to despair.

This was a difficult to say the least, because Alria had many reasons to despair.

She should not even be here. She was never meant to fight in battle or be a Prisoner Of War. In the Ulthwé Craftworld Alria had chosen the Path of the Sculptor, using wraithbone to create many beautiful and stunning works of art and all agreed she had the potential to be a great sculptor. In combat training Alria was never able to surpass her parents or her neighbors and sometimes struggled to keep up.

But there were too few Aspect Warriors on Craftworld Ulthwé, too few Aspect Warriors on Ulthwé and too many foes for them all to fight alone. So Alria and many of her friends and her neighbors were needed as Guardians, and for the first time in her life Alria faced a battle. Not a training exercise, an actual battle against foes that actually wanted to snuff out her life.

Alria would not allow herself to despair.

"It will be fine", assured her fiance Gilrion before the battle, "The Mon-keigh are too weak to stand before us." Gilrion had assured Alria that there was nothing to worry about, that they would be back within Ulthwé before they knew it. He told Alria that they need only follow their Warlock to survive and victory was all but sure.

Alria would not allow herself to despair.

But that is not how things went. Instead they were bitterly defeated. Mon-keigh - clad in their crude green armor diving their sluggish metal vehicles and wielding their graceless lazer rifles - surrounded and overwhelmed them. There were too many for the Guardians to fight off, and all potential avenues of escape were blocked off.

Alria was forced to watch helplessly as countless of her kindred were wiped out; precious Eldar destroyed by brutes who lived only one-twentieth of an Eldar's lifespan and whose minds are too dim and slow to truly understand what they were seeing. Alria hated Mon-keigh; how could she not when she had been raised her entire life to believe that they were backwards savages. Friends she knew and worked with for years fell dead upon the ground, their fine armor pierced through with red beams.

Alria would not allow herself to despair.

Her friend Isenbera was blown apart by a grenade, her neighbor Baharruin hit in the head by one of the Mon-keigh's red beams, and their Warlock was impelled in the torso by a Mon-keigh with a sword. When her fiance Gilrion slew that one, a very giant one - one who called himself an "Ogryn Bulwark" grabbed him and ripped him apart with barberic savagry. Alria was forced to watch as a giant brute dismembered her husband-to-be, and though she fired at it her Shruiken Rifle did not seem to have any effect on it. Then another Ogryn whacked her on the back of the head and she fell unconscious. When she came to she was in a dark cell.

Alria would not allow herself to despair. She was sitting in a prison cell, her head was throbbing with immense pain, her fiance was dead, she knew she would soon be tortured and killed. Yet Alria would not allow herself to despair.

Truth be told, Alria knew that it did not matter. Even if Alria did kept her feelings in check now, She-Who-Thirsts would still devour her soul in a few days. It is all too well known by Eldar what happens when one of them is imprisoned by the Mon-keigh. Alria expected them to torture her for information, kill her, then desecrate her corpse by cutting it into small pieces. That is what happened to Taldeer, a former Farseer of the Ulthwé Craftworld, after she was captured by Mon-keigh centuries ago. But even she was lucky compared to Alria, as Taldeer was allowed to hold her Spirit Stone before she was executed so she was only trapped instead of obliterated.

These Mon-keigh took away Alria's Spirit Stone as well as her armor and her weapon, leaving her in in ill-fitting orange garbs and mettle shackles which left her feeling itchy and disgusted. Her Spirit Stone gone, Alria has no hope of ever being saved from The Great Enemy.

Yet Alria would not allow herself to despair. Alria would give her captors the satisfaction of seeing her despair.

Then, after days of imprisonment, Alria saw the door open. A Mon-keigh covered head to toe in ugly green armor entered. Like all Mon-keigh, he moved gracelessly and awkwardly and slowly. So painful it almost looked painful and made Alria wonder how they ever got anything done.

He pulled her up by her arm shackles, stepped behind her, and pushed her along with the barrel of his gun. Alria did not try to pull away or fight back as she knew it would be futile and would only cause worse suffering to befall her. She was unarmed, the guard leading her did have a weapon, and so did the other guards standing along the hallway.

"Keep your head down, Xeno Freak!" snarled the Mon-keigh guard in his ugly guttural tongue. Alria did not speak the language of these beasts, yet she could guess by his tone and gesture what he meant.

She was prodded down the hallway until she reached a small room. Alria thought that they were taking her to the room so they could kill her. Alria would not allow herself to despair. She braced herself for her impending doom, so she could at least be obliterated with her pride in-tact.

The guard pushed her inside and stood in the doorway with his rifle. Alria turned around towards the room and saw another Mon-keigh sitting behind a metal desk. Upon that desk was a translator unit - an Eldar Translator Unit, one Alria was sure he had stolen from her fellow Guardians. The Guardians _his_ men murdered..

This Mon-keigh appeared to be in a position of prominence or even leadership among his people; he wore a red sash across his torso, a golden sword at his side, and several gold medals upon his chest. He had blond hair cut close to his head, and green eyes that squinted with avarice.

He activated the translator unit and spoke. It translated his words into Eldar ones.

"My name is Rory Malone, and I am Planetary Governor here. I don't care what you call yourself, because I'm sure it's some primitive gibberish. Now, I am sure you are wondering why I kept you alive. Why I didn't kill you like I did the others."

Alria did not speak, but if any Eldar saw her posture and pose and gestures now they could see that she was expressing her utter contempt for the man. Eldar can have entire conversations without any verbal words needed, and right now Alria was giving Rory Malone as many non-verbal insults as she could.

Malone continued, as most of it went over his head. "I already know you are not thrilled here, but as it turns out I have an opportunity for you. An opportunity for you to give me a reason to let you continue existing."

This took Alria off-guard. She had thought that Malone was simply taunting her - simply playing with his food - but it seems there is more. Alria did not allow herself to become hopeful, lest disappointment crush her spirit, but she was listening.

"You see, the Official Imperial Policy is to kill all non-humans on sight. However, occasionally a xeno can prove itself useful to an important man or woman in the Imperium. When this happens, the xeno can find itself the recipient of Sanctioning."

Alria was left speechless, so Governor Malone continued.

"Before I conquered and purged this backwater, it was an Ork World. But before that, it was a planet of The Old Eldar Empire. And it is rumored that in those days the Eldar who ruled the planet hid a vast fortune of wealth and artifacts just before the doom."

"You want me to help you plunder the final resting places of my people? To desecrate their graves and their memory? To betray my people and everything it stands for?" Alria spoke now, through gritted teeth and with utter disgust and outrage in her voice. She was still restraining her emotions: were she not she would have attempted to strangle this Mon-keigh for even daring to entertain such notions.

"Heh ... I am surprised you have so much respect for the perverted hedonists who broke your Empire, killed your Gods, and spawned the Eye of Terror."

When Alria refused to agknowledge the statement, Governor Malone took a different approach. "I have the Spirit Stones of your dead fellows."

This caught Alria's attention, as she knew what that meant. Spirit Stones were used to store the souls of Dead Eldars after death, preventing them from being eaten by She-Who-Thirsts and allowing them to be joined with the Infinity Circuits of Craftworlds and Maiden Worlds.

Malone smiled an ugly smile at Alria's reaction; his teeth were jagged and three were chipped. His eyes shone at the prospect of wealth within his grasp. "Personally I don't believe people go anywhere when they die, but I have been active in the Cold Trade my whole life and met many a Corsair and in my time. So you see, I know what you Eldar believe. Now, I am going to offer you a choice: accept my offer or reject it. If you agree to cooperate then you will have a Sanction-In-Perpetuity, you will be allowed to exist unmolested on this world for the rest of your days, I will give you back your useless red rock, and I will only sell the Spirit Stones to Craftworlds and Exodites. But refuse and I will sell you as well as every single Spirit Stone to the highest bidding Kabal. The choice is yours."

This sent cold chills down Alria's spine. She knew exactly what that would mean; if the Druchii got the Spirit Stones then those monsters would consume those invaluable Eldar Souls and sentence those innocent Eldars to a undeserved oblivion. Alria wanted to vomit just at the thought, so terrifying was it to her.

"H - how do I know you will keep your word?"

"I may be greedy but I am still a man of my word. Now I'll bring you back here tomorrow and hear your answer."

With that, the guard pulled Alria out of the seat and pushed the numb Eldar Guardian back to her cell.


	3. Chapter 3

After a breakfast of hash browns from the can, Karl Werner walked out the front door.

This old Krieg Veteran was dressed in his army trenchcoat, his boots, and of course his gas-mask. Though this world's atmosphere was perfectly breathable and free of radiation, old habits are stubborn things. Slung over his back Werner carried his lasrifle as the world can be a dangerous and deadly place for the unprepared.

He did not wear his helmet because wearing a full uniform outside of parades and active duty is punishable by a hefty fine. This fine is not crippling, but it is inconvenient enough that Werner does not want to risk being in trouble for it nor did he wish to break with even local Imperial Ordinances. As he thought of this Karl Werner recalled a rumor he had heard a few months ago, one about a Valhallan Ice Warrior Veteran who took his own life upon recieving a light fine - presumably out of the belief that slight transgressions were punished with painful death everywhere else in the Imperium in the way that it is in Valhalla. Werner doubted this story's authenticy; if the man did exist he most likely committed suicide to silence the nightmares of battle in his head.

"May the Emperor grant him peace." Karl Werner thought to himself.

Werner was on his way to an Imperial Shrine seven miles down the road. It was the Shrine Of The Emperor's Judgement, dedicated to Colonel Jurten of 83rd Death Korps Regiment. He is credited with using nuclear bombardment to prevent the Rebels from overruning Krieg. Outsiders might call Colenel Jurten a monster for killing half his planet's population, but men of Krieg know that he is a hero who brought victory to The Emperor and saved Krieg from an Exterminatus that would have inevitably have followed a loyalist defeat. Werner was on his way to the shrine as there was a special vigil today in honor of all the Imperial Soldiers who gave their lives in defense of The Emperor and Humanity.

 _Slosh slosh slosh!_ Werner tromped down the muddy road. All around there were other homesteads; in a few of them Werner could see other Imperial Veterans tending to their lands. Some bred Grox like Werner, some bred Terran Pigs, some grew corn or wheat or other Imperial Crops, some were starting orchards.

As he looked about, he thought of Krieg. That planet had been a hard place to live. The ground was hard and dead for not a single plant grew there. The sky was red too, burning with radiation that Colonel Jurten had unleashed upon the traitors so long ago. When it rained it rained burning acid, and even when Karl Werner wore his gas mask everything -even the air itself- tasted of ash. Yet it was home, and Werner sometimes finds himself almost missing it.

It was as he was walking and remembering these things that he noticed some rustling in the bushes further down the road. Carefully, he drew his lasrifle and proceeded with caution. "Stay alert, stay alive", that's what Werner's Sergeant had always told him.

Sure enough he saw three men (if you can call them that) waiting by the side of the road. All three were filthy and thin, all three armed. Two of them looked jittery and bitter, the third one seemed intoxicated out of his mind.

"For bandits you fellows aren't good at hiding!" Werner shouted, pointing his gun at the three as he did so.

The two sober ones turned on him with their own guns. One of them, wearing a thick red scarf around his neck, addressed Werner in a thick Vostroyan accent. "You're walking on my road. Just pay the toll and be done."

Werner shook his head. "This is the Imperial Road, there is no toll on it, and you three sure as shit don't look like Imperial Officers."

The bandit with the Red Scarf tried to laugh but he was too strung out to be convincing. "We have guns!"

"I have one two. Right now it's one soldier against two -"

"Three!" countered the bandit leader.

"Two," corrected Werner pointing to the third one who still noticed nothing wrong. Indeed that one was so high on Obscura that he would be of no use in a battle. "Two shit excuses for men. Now, I suggest you all crawl back into your hole and call it a day."

The second sober bandit whispered something to the first one, presumably pointing out how risky this was, and began to drag the doped-out third one away. The bandit in the Red Scarf left too, but not before glaring back at Werner.

"Fucking cowards," grumbled Werner under his breath, "they'll rob unarmed civilians but are afraid of a real fight."

Once he was sure the bandits were gone, Werner continued his walk to the Shrine.

The rest of the walk was pretty peaceful. In one homestead a man shot skeet with a laspistol, each rock he threw exploding into gravel when the laser's searing blast hit it. In another an old man was pulling turnips and carrots from his garden. By the side of the road was a man black-out drunk, asleep and clutching a bottle of Tranq in each hand and a third one under his arm.

Finally Werner reached his destination.

It was a small, austere, unadorned building constructed of concrete and steel and embrasures for windows. This was a Krieg Shrine, following the Krieger Variation of Imperial Creed. There would be no golden statues or fine murals within this building: only a stone alter carved with the seal of the Adeptus Ministorum and some important quotes from the Lectitio Divinitatus carved on the inside of the walls.

As far as Werner was concerned the other variations of Imperial Creed could keep their golden dome roofs, their stain glass windows, their bell towers, their minarets, and their marble. Werner was a man of Krieg, and Kriegermen prefer to show their devotion with their deeds.

Most of those entering the building were Kriegermen, but a few were Kasrkins and Vostroyans: it might be because they find this variation of Imperial Creed more meaningful than the one they grew up with, or it might just be that this shrine is the closest to them, but either way they all worshipped the same God-Emperor and as such were all welcome within this Shrine.

Karl Werner would spend most of the mass praying for his comrades and fellow Imperial Guardsmen; the only prayer he would give for himself would be that The Emperor grant purpose to his life.


	4. Chapter 4

Alria trod downheartedly upon the spongy wet grass of Mediolanum, and the only reason she was able to keep her emotions in check was that they were rendered utterly numb by the day's decision. Alria was not sure who disgusted her more, Governor Malone or herself.

"I had to accept, I had to," she told herself internally, "It is the only way to protect my fellow Guardians from She-Who-Thirsts. If I didn't then their souls would have been sold to those vile wretches in Commorragh."

Yet even as she told herself this, Alria wondered if this was really the reason she accepted the offer. Was she really trying to save her Eldar Kindred, or was she just trying to save herself?

"It does not matter," she said softly to herself, "None of it matters; my Craftworld will never want me back. Not after I helped brutish Mon-keigh plunder the tombs of our ancestors."

Feeling exhausted, Alria went to the tree line to rest. Once she got there, she sat down upon the cold grass and resisted the urge to break down into tears. As always, she was on guard against the dangers of The Great Enemy. It was not time to attract the attention of such a dangerous foe; it was time to assess the situation and see what could be done.

Alria had her Guardian Armor (for protection), her Shruiken Rifle with it's ammunition (also for protection, though if she ran out she would not get any more), an Eldar Translator Unit (should communication with Mon-keigh be unavoidable), a Licence of Sanction (so the Mon-keigh on this world do not kill Alria on sight), and an old Eldar recording device (one which, according to The Governor, contains the clues necessary for an Eldar to find the hidden treasure).

Governor Malone did not bother attaching a slave collar to her, guessing correctly that Alria would not abandon the spirits of her Ulthwé Kin. But just to be especially sure, he withheld her Spirit Stone to ensure that aiding his grave-robbery is the only way to preserve her own soul from an agonizing oblivion.

"Don't think about that. Do not think about what will happen should I perish ... it means only that I most stay alive. I must stay alive for the souls of my kindred. I must not fail ..."

Refusing to despair, Alria stood up and continued her trek along the forest edge. It was getting cold, and she knew that she would soon need to get shelter. For as sophisticated as an Eldar's anatomy was, even it could not withstand indefinite exposure to the elements.

As she made her way through the woods, this Eldar Guardian took note of her surroundings. To her left was the forest; it was full of wild trees, bushy shrubs, dead stumps, and an assortment of other plant life. Night birds flew in the skies and critters ran about on the grounds below. To her right was the clearing; full of simple Mon-keigh Dwellings assembled of wood and stone, of sleeping beasts, of dirt roads and pathways, and of soggy grass. Even in her condition, Alria was still on the Path of the Sculptor and as such still looked in the world around her for inspiration. She saw many things upon which she could use as the base for a wraithbone sculpture if she ever gets the chance to.

"When. When I get the chance to." Alria reminded herself, trying to buoy her morale with optimism. "I will succeed in this."

Deciding to take rest at the nearest shelter she could find, she set her gaze upon two mon-keigh structures some ways in the distance. They were both simple structures, constructed of fast-rotting timber as opposed to the more permanent and elegant wraithbone that acts as the staple building product of Alria's race. In fact, even by Mon-keigh standards these were crude; certainly the buildings she saw in the planets capitol were built with stronger materials and appeared to be the work of professional contractors.

But these structures might keep Alria warm for the night and dry if it rains, and for tonight at least that will be enough.

Cautiously, her Shruiken Rifle ready if it should come to fighting, Alria approached the wooden structures. She did not need to fear for being spotted, for the armor of Ulthwé Guardians was black in color. A Guardian from another craftworld would have been far easier to spot at night, especially one from Nacretinei or Biel-Tan where their Guardians wear white armor.

Alria reached a wooden fence surrounding the farm. She was about to climb over it, but the sound of a pack of Mon-heigh walking up to the cabin from the road stopped Alria in her tracks. Before they arrived, she crouched low to the ground behind the fence so as to better hide her presence. Were there any Gods to pray to, Alria would have prayed that this pack would pass by quickly enough.

They did not. Instead, the three mon-keigh slinked up to the smaller of the two structures. One of them, one which wore a Red Scarf around his neck, spoke something in his guttural tongue to his two companions. They nodded, and withdrew bottles from their coats. The Red-Scarfed mon-keigh drew his bottle and threw it at the door of the structure, and his two followers did the same.

The three bottles exploded in a ball of fire upon impact, causing the porch to ignite in an orange blaze. The Mon-keigh drew three more bottles of fire and flung them at the porch, causing a great fire to erupt.

The three Mon-keigh present stood laughing at the flames for a few moments, indulging in their destructive impulses.

After a few moments passed, Alria heard over the flames and the cruel laughter a thudding against the door. There was something inside the structure, probably another Mon-keigh, and it was trying to escape a fiery death.

The three arsonists on the outside laughed harder when they noticed the thud, and the one in the Red Scarf shouted something in a mocking tone.

Alria had been watching this, and with each second her anger grew. Anger at the dim giants that ripped her fiance limb-from-limb, anger at Governor Malone for turning her into a pawn, anger at the uncaring hands of fate that have forced her into exile.

She decided that she could at least prevent this cruelty. She drew her Shuriken Rifle, took aim at one of the three arsonists, and fired away. A burst of plasti-crystals shot out of the weapon and struck one of the arsonists in the side.

The arsonist fell immediately, causing his two companions to cease their merriment. They fired wildly into the darkness with their lasrifles, but did not see where Alria was hiding and thus had no idea where to aim. After a few moments of this panic, the other two spoke something in their Mon-keigh tongue. Alria dare not activate the translator unit to discover what they said, lest it reveal her location, but she could tell that they were in a panic. The two dropped their rifles on the ground, after which the one with the red scarf ran off into the darkness. His second companion picked up the now unmoving third one, hoisted the body over his shoulder, and ran off in pursuit of his leader.

All that was left was the pounding on the door. It was growing fainter, and if Alria did nothing than the mon-keigh trapped in the house would be killed by the smoke.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Bang!**_

The door did not give way. Karl Werner stepped a few paces back, and charged his left shoulder at the door once more.

 _ **Bang!**_

The door did not give way. Why would it not give way!

"Damn!" Werner cursed, sweat running down his face, his skin becoming hotter with each passing second. He knew that the he had to get out soon, or else the smoke and ash would fill his lungs and kill him. His gas mask, despite being the product of reliable Imperium Industry, was not indestructible and would eventually fail.

Werner charged at the door once again. Again, no break.

 _ **Bang!**_

"I have to get out of here!" the Kriegerman thought to himself. He was running out of options; he could not simply unlock the door, as the key jammed in the lock when he attempted to do this and both key and lock are too hot to jiggle clean. If he had an axe with him he could hack the door down ... but alas the axe was with the cords of firewood stored outside of the cabin. There are no windows in this cabin, no weak spots in the door, and the chimney was too narrow for climbing to be a viable option; like a Kriegerman, Werner built this cabin to resemble a bunker and to provide easy defense in the event of a fight. Now this defense was quickly turning into a deathtrap.

"Not like this ..." Werner mumbled to himself, "not here, not now ..."

Werner is not afraid of death on it's own nor was he even afraid of the fact that nobody alive would remember that he even existed; Karl Werner is a man of faith and he knows that on the other side of a faithful soldiers death waits The Imperial Table and all those comrades and friends Werner had to bury. No no; what he was afraid of was dying for nothing; he was afraid of dying in a way that provides no benefit to The Imperium, he was afraid of dying for nothing.

In frustration, Werner charged at the door once again. Once again it was to no effect.

 _ **Bang!**_

The longer he remained in the building, the more of a toll the smoke and heat was taking on this poor man. His breaths were becoming shallower and louder with each second, his chest was straining under the pressure placed upon his bloodstream.

Backing away from the door, Werner poised himself and rallied all his strength for one last effort. Sprinting towards the door with all his might, Karl Werner threw the full weight of his person against the thick wooden door.

 ** _Craaack!_**

The effort threw Werner back, and he fell onto the ground. The door did not break, but it's hinges had been loosened. Now Werner could force his way through the rest of it and escape from this prison. He only needed to ...

Before he could do anything, Werner fell onto his hands and knees. He felt all his energy draining out of him, and felt his consciousness slipping. Werner struggled, knowing he would not wake up if he passed out now.

He kept his face turned towards the door, and tried to will himself to climb out. "Keep going ... do not give up ... Krieg men do not give up ..."

It was to no avail; his vision was clouding, he was unable to breath, and he soon collapsed onto the ground.

Facing the end of his life, he looked back upon it while he could still think. He thought of campaigns, serving The Emperor and The Imperium with all the trials this entailed. But most of all, he thinks of Krieg. Despite the planet being a blasted out death world, Krieg was still where Karl Werner grew up and where he was given a purpose. It's where he learned how to fight, how to use a rifle, and how to use his life for the Imperium.

It was on Krieg that all of Werner's comrades and friends came from; he hoped he would see them again after he died.

Just before he completely fell into unconsciousness, Werner heard a sound ahead of him. It sounded like ... wood being hacked ...


	6. Chapter 6

When Werner wearily opened his eyes, the first thing that greeted him was an array of pain receptors letting him know just how close to death he still was. Werner's head was throbbing with pain, his heart was struggling not to collapse in on itself, his mouth tasted ashes, and breathing was a great difficulty. He immediately had to close his eyes again he was overcome with pain.

"Aghhhh!" he groaned, shivering as he did so.

He tried to wonder where he was, what had happened, but it was difficult to concentrate.

"I ... I was in ... there ... fire ... fire ..." Werner mumbled this in half-delirium, recalling at least part of what happened. He knew there was a fire, and that by all rights he should have been dead. But he was not dead; why not?

As soon as Werner began groaning, gentle hands smoothed his matted hair while a sweet voice soothed him back to calmness. It was a voice unlike any other that Werner had heard before; it was sweet and tender. In the back of Werner's mind he knew that something was wrong, though he was too weak to puzzle out what that might be. Nor could he quite understand what she was saying, just that whatever it was made him feel better.

"It's almost ... almost like another language ..." As Werner thought this, his mind drifted back to rest. This woman's words seemed to flow softly; softer than anything Werner had felt or heard before. He could swear she was not speaking Low Gothic, or even High Gothic, but what language she was speaking he could not tell and his mental cognitions were still afflicted.

But it seemed that the woman was trying to tell Werner to rest, so he closed his eyes and reclined his head back. It still hurt to breath and his lungs were still full of ashes, as his gas mask could not keep all it out. The masks were not made to last. They, like the Death Korp Soldiers who wore them, were issued in bulk and had a high turnover rate. Werner knew he should have tried to find a new filter for it. But his failure to do so was only symptomatic of a greater problem.

Werner internally reflected on this fact."The filter is past its usefulness ... like me. If I can not fight and die in battle, then I have no purpose."

After this bitter thought, Werner drifted back out of consciousness.

Truth be told, Werner has been utterly disoriented ever since his discharge. Since the day he was born he was a soldier. Follow orders, shoot at xenos and heretics, expect to die in combat, welcome it when it comes, but fight with everything you have so that when if comes you are worthy of it. Life as a civilian has been jarring for him to say the least. It was foreign to him, alien. It messed with his mind more than a little bit, and robbed it of some of the sharpness that kept Werner alive while so many others fell around him. He felt that he had no purpose, that his destiny of death in service to the Emperor had been denied him, and that he had no reason for being alive.

An hour or so later werner drifted back into consciousness. He tried opening his eyes again, but it was too dark in the room and his eyes were too weak and he could see only a few blurred shadows before he had to close them again. He again heard the sweet voice trying to calm him to sleep.

He tried to think of comforting thoughts, but they were few and far between. A childhood friend (he died in training), a word of approval from an old drill instructor (he was blown to bits by an ancient landmine from the Krieg Civil War), a quiet moment of sitting around a trench cooking fire with a comrade (he got ripped apart by one of Nurgle's Abominations), a Valhallan Ice Warrior who offered Werner a lighter (he got stabbed in battle and died of infection a week later), a girl on an shrine-world who was kind enough to bring him water once (the town she lived in got wiped out by a band of Orks looters so she's probably dead too) ...

Werner did not have any loved ones. He had no mother to nurse or swaddle him, no father to carry him upon shoulders. He never married, or had a girlfriend, or even so much as a childhood crush. He had few people who could even generously be called friends, and most of them are dead.

Werner, like the majority of Death Korps Soldiers, was born from a vitae womb and raised from birth to be a soldier. His childhood was fatalist sermons, a cold orphanage, and non-stop drilling across a burned out world. He was not saddened by this lack of parents because on Krieg this was normal. In the Krieg Death Korps those soldiers who grew up being raised by their parents are the minority. Karl Werner did not even know what parents were until he fought alongside Imperial Guardsmen from other worlds. When he saw soldiers being sentimental about the families they left behind, or calling for their mothers as they died, he assumed that these "family" things were just sources of weakness. Things that made you blubber when you should be firm and grim. So what if there was nobody to miss him if he died?! That didn't matter; it's selfish to desire to live anyway.

Werner's thoughts were interrupted by a coughing-fit. Once the fit ended, he went to sleep and wondered. He wondered who had tried to burn him alive in his own home, and he wondered who had saved him ...


	7. Chapter 7

While Alria tried to help the Mon-keigh recover from all the smoke that had found its way into his air system, she tried to figure out why she was doing this. Why was she sitting in a crude barn, surrounded by odious grox, just for the sake of this Mon-keigh? Was he worth the Shuriken Rifle ammunition she spent to save him, and was he even worth the time she was spending? If she brought this question to anyone on Ulthwe then she would have been laughed at for even asking it, but the answer was not so obvious to her right now.

The Mon-keigh started coughing again, so Alria tried to soothe him back to sleep with gentle words. "Don't worry, don't worry, you'll be better soon ..."

He seemed to like that, as his coughing subsided again. Alria did not have any of the equipment needed to treat smoke inhalation, and even if she had it she would not know how to utilize it as she had no knowledge of medicine (let alone veterinary training), but the mon-keigh seemed to be recovering. Soon, Alria hoped, he would be fully healed.

But why did Alria hope that? There must be a reason for her to care about this Mon-keigh, this man who Alria's culture considered to be a lesser being. It can not be that she values all lives; in order to save this Mon-Keigh she had to kill another one. That one is still outside where Alria shot him dead, getting picked apart by dark birds and grey rodents. And in any case, even if the one she is trying to save does recover he will just die in less than a measly century. Alria had only just reached adulthood by the standards of her race, and yet she was still three times as old as this Mon-keigh could hope to live to naturally. Even if this one could prolong it's life by the crude science of his race, his mind would be too dull to truly experience anything.

And yet, looking at him now Alria still hoped that he recovered. "What is it about you?" the Eldar woman asked the human man. He did not answer, instead he remained asleep.

Sighing, Alria decided that she needed some sleep too. This was easier said than done, as the only blanket was covering the Mon-keigh. Temperature aside, the barn was full of drooling lobotomized beasts and stank of their excrement and their urine. It reminded Alria too much of the Prison Cell where Governor Malonie held her as a captive, for there too the entire cell block stank of the filth made by the other prisoners. Even hovels that the rustic Exodites inhabited on their Lilaethan, the Maiden Worlds they fled to before the fall, were not so filthy as the places where the Mon-keigh lived and kept their beasts of burden.

Less than a month ago Alria was in her Craftworld, creating beautiful works of art.

"Stay positive, do not despair", Alria reminded herself. As an Eldar, Alria must always keep her emotions in check lest She Who Thirsts find a weakness to exploit. Even the Gods - Asuryan the Phoenix King, Kurnous the Hunter, Kaela Mensha Khaine the Warrior - if even they could not defeat The Great Enemy then what hope other than avoiding direct conflict did the Eldar have of survival?

Remembering that the point of this was to stay _positive_ , Alria shifted her thoughts away from the extinction of her people's Gods. She tried thinking about her family and friends instead. Oh boy would she look forward to seeing them again! Her father Elros always took her to the gardens (he followed the Path of the Farmer after completing the Path of Service), and her mother Laedra would give her the best hugs and would tell stories about their race's glorious path (she followed the Path of the Storyteller, an artisan like her daughter). And Alria's would like to see her fiance's brother Galanban again; Alria always wanted a little brother and Galanban had such a bubbly personality that everyone felt better around him.

... but then Alria would have to tell Galanban that his older brother Gilrion had met a violent end on the field of battle. It is unlikely that Galanban would see his older brother again so long as he lived: Gilrion was not a warrior or a tacticion, so there would be no reason to place his soul in a wraithguard. And Alria would have to tell her parents how she was blackmailed into helping the Mon-Keigh plunder the graves of their ancestors. Not that she would get a chance to; there is no way Craftworld Ulthwé would ever take her back after such a deed. They'd take the Spiritstones, but it is unlikely that they would take her as well. More likely is that they will try to kill her for this, honestly Alria would not be able to blame them if they did.

"It would have been better if I had never been born" she muttered to herself.

Unable to call to mind a single thing to cheer herself up, Alria decided to stop thinking and to instead distract her mind the only way she knew how: sculpting. Alria was not yet skilled enough in this to be a full-fledged bonesinger ( ... yet) and would probably never match the old masters like Kaeleth-Tul, but she has been working on her path for the last few centuries and all her teachers told her that she has potential.

Alria left the Grox Barn and headed outside so she could work without disturbing the sleeping Mon-keigh. She walked past the dead Mon-Keigh, past the log cabin, and to a small grassy area where she felt she would attract little attention. From there she began to concentrate fully and intensely on her craft, pulling psychic energy from the warp and crystallizing it in realspace. It was straining work, but Alria enjoyed it and because she focused entirely on the sculpting process she was able to at least temporarily forget the troubles she found herself in.

Ever so delicately, the sculpture began to take shape in Alria's nimble hands. A few twists here, a few turns there, keep focusing, remember to breathe, a little bit more, a little bit more ...

After a good amount of time, Alria had formed a rough form. It was not her best work by any stretch of the imagination (the sculptures Alria is most proud of had taken her years to complete), it was just a quick little creation to take her nerves off edge. If Alria saw further potential in it then she would add additional details to it, but for now she could not. It was a small creation, maybe the size of an Eldar's closed fist, so she would easily be able carry it on her person while she journeyed across this world.

Calmed down considerably by this, Alria stood up and began to head back inside the barn. She picked up a lasrifle from the dead attacker and brought it inside with her - to ensure that if the other two attackers returned they could not use it against her.

Once inside, Alria found a dry corner in the barn. She rested her head against the wall, laid her shuriken catapult across her lap, and looked one last time at the sleeping Mon-Keigh. She still did not know why she rescued him, but right now she felt it did not matter. She closed her eyes, and soon drifted into a much-needed sleep.


End file.
